| An
expert re-creator of everyday noises, ZeroBoy conveyed a tale of a
guy driving down a highway, racing a motorcyclist (whom he flips off
when he pulls away), surfing through radio stations and removing something
splattered against the windshield.
He
used a few choice words and included some simnple gestures, yet
the entertainment was all about his talent with his mouth.
"My
sounds aren't perfect," said Zero Boy, 38, a rising performance-artist
sensation, born Joel Blumsack in the Boston suburb of Brookline.
"But
because I'm like a comic book— I use hand gestures, like driving
a steering wheel— your imagination has to work. I don't provide
the actual props, so people have to see in their minds what they're
creating."
 Zero
Boy's act may sound silly, but he's loved at Deep Dish, a I traveling
act called "the hippest thing in Manhattan" by Talk magazine, and
has been booked there more than any other performer. The Whitney
Museum also invited him to join its popular spring performance series
"By Any Means Necessary."
"l've
seen hundreds of performers, and Zero Boy's material is uniquely
brilliant in its conception and execution," said Stephen Kosloff,
who runs Deep Dish, which again features Zero Boy this Saturday
at 10:30 p.m. (It's at 675 Hudson St., 3N; for his other peformances,
check zeroboy.com or call [212] 254-1954.)
"I'm
sure someone will discover him, and I think he's destined to do
big things."
Zero
Boy grew up playing alone — despite having two brothers — and trying
to imitate the sounds and characters of favorite TV shows like "Voyage
to the Bottom of the Sea."
"We
used to play fighting games like cops and robbers, but whenever
you play a kid, they always win," he said. "So it was just easier
to play by myself."
"That's
why they call me Zero Boy—I had zero friends," he joked.
Actually, the stage name was his own creation, a moniker that came
to him "like a flash one night."
Now, of course, he can't shake it.
"More
people know me by Zero Boy than by my real name," he said. "Sometimes
some friends will go, 'Hey Joel,' and I've never heard them say
my real name. My girlfriend says she didn't know my real name for
two weeks.
His love of performing was encouraged when, as a kid he attended
the Elmo Lewis School of Fine Arts in Boston, a black cultural.
institution where his dad worked as a theater teacher. He and his
brothers were the only students who weren't black. He learned ballet,
violin and conga drums.
Zero Boy also attended Boston University's theater school for years,
then moved to the East Village and developed his self-. escribed
"vocal acrobat" routine.
He tried it out while living all s over Europe, in Holland, Germany
and Russia. The advantage of doing sound effects was that he didn't
need to speak the language.
One of the stranger venues was at the High Times Cannabis Cup in
Amsterdam. (Afterward, he served as the magazine's foreign correspondent
and moved into a swank loft above the Hash Museum.)
Zero Boy, whose other performing names are Johnny Zero and Joel
Farrell, doesn't agree with people who think his name is self-deprecating.
"In
Europe, people would ask me, 'Don't you think you're putting yourself
down?' but in New York, people just say I'm weird."
It means a lot when even New Yorker's think
someone's weird!
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